Lauren Upshur, a garden staffer with the city of Grosse Pointe Park, waters a decorative sapling on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, in a traffic roundabout on Kercheval Avenue at where a new sculpture -- "Sails of Two Cities" -- is meant to symbolize a new spirit of cooperation between the suburb and Detroit. The sculpture, at the border between the two cities, is to be dedicated on Thurs., Aug. 3, 2017. (Photo: Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press)

This tale of two cities began with stark differences: black and white, rich and poor.

When Grosse Pointe Park officials dedicate a new sculpture symbolizing a civic bond with Detroit — as planned for this afternoon — they’ll do it right in the middle of a street where, three years ago, they stuck a controversial traffic barrier blocking Detroiters.

Suburbanites, with a wink-wink, called the barrier a “traffic calming device.” Detroiters said it was a racist blockade and the latest insult after decades of slights.

Now, the hoisting of a new sculpture called "Sails of Two Cities" signals a change — the frictions are ending, said Laurie Aurora, a member of the Grosse Pointe Park City Council.

"I think the healing has begun," Aurora said this week. The sculpture’s shape and name encompass a feeling that officials on both sides of the border are celebrating — the hope that city and suburb can work together.

The sculpture's title is both a nautical play on words, reflecting Grosse Pointe Park’s proximity to boating, and a playful reference to Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel, “Tale of Two Cities,” about Paris and London. The piece's silvery faux sails sparkle with a grid of sky-blue rectangles, meant to suggest the neighborhood streets that surround its pedestal. It sits on the suburb’s side of its storied border with Detroit, steps from Alter Road on Detroit’s east side.

The sculpture was a gift from Grosse Pointe Park City Councilwoman Barb Detwiler and her husband, Fred Detwiler, city officials said. It was created by brothers Erik and Israel Nordin, best known for creating the D-Burst, an illuminated "D" that drops from a crane at midnight each Dec. 31 in downtown Detroit's Campus Martius to herald the new year.

The "D" drop inspires revelry with a dash of civic pride. The new work in Grosse Pointe Park stirs a different feeling, one already finding outlets in small projects along the two cities' borders.

Grosse Pointe Park Mayor Pro Tem Dan Clark speaks to a crowd of about 50 gathered on Sunday, July 30, 2017, to dedicate the new art, landscaping and decorative fencing at Fox Creek Park, on the Detroit side of the suburb's border with the city. Grosse Pointe Park assisted with the improvements.(Photo: Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press)

“I want to give a big thank you to our friends in Grosse Pointe Park,” said Josh Elling, speaking to a crowd of about 50 onlookers Saturday at the dedication of newly upgraded Fox Creek Park, on the Detroit side of the border, at the corner of East Jefferson and Alter Road.

"We want to thank everyone who worked on this project to bring new collaboration across the border," said Elling. He's executive director of the nonprofit Jefferson East Inc., a community growth group that works to upgrade buildings and lure businesses to Detroit’s side of the border. Like the new sculpture about a mile away, Fox Creek Park is not by itself a big deal, but is valued for its symbolism and for the warm ties it generated, Elling said.

The park's ⅓-acre space was a storage site for the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department. Then it became a park in name only, filled with little more than weeds and litter. Last year, the two cities began collaborating to improve it, with new landscaping, artwork added by student artists from both cities, and decorative fencing graced by an archway. That spot was where surprised onlookers at the dedication — like Barbara Favors — posed for photos and selfies with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

"This is really nice — I hope people will treat it right," said Favors, a Detroiter who lives in an apartment just steps from the pocket park.

Other cross-border improvements are sprouting on Mack Avenue, Grosse Pointe Park Mayor Bob Denner said. The two cities "joined together" to plant trees along Mack on the Detroit side of the border, matching the greenery on the suburban side, Denner announced in the city's August newsletter.

The trees were funded through a donation by Grosse Pointe Park resident Roger Garrett, a longtime member of the city's beautification committee, the newsletter said.

And bigger collaborative projects are in the pipeline, the suburb's leaders have said.

Yet, despite the gestures of kumbaya, the sculpture’s site on Kercheval remains a traffic barricade — a roundabout that allows only one-way traffic, from Detroit into Grosse Pointe Park. That was a compromise struck in 2014 by Detroit’s leaders with the city council of Grosse Pointe Park, after years of saber rattling about crime and blight at the border by a former mayor, the late Palmer Heenan.

"We don't have to get Detroit's permission" to put up a barricade, Heenan said in 2013. Soon after, he pushed to have the city erect farmers market sheds smack in the middle of Kercheval Avenue, an artery that had connected city and suburb for more than a century.

From left, Grosse Pointe Park Mayor Pro Tem Dan Clark shakes hands with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan on Sunday, July 30, 2017, at the dedication of newly upgraded Fox Creek Park, on the Detroit side of Alter Road at East Jefferson, across from the suburb, which assisted in the improvements to landscaping, decorative fencing and artwork in the 1/3-acre green space.(Photo: Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press)

Suburban leaders back then called the barricade a sensible “traffic-calming device.” Detroiters, including Detroit City Attorney Melvin Butch Hollowell, reviled the blockade as racism in a new form, the latest insult in decades of being shunned by their wealthy Grosse Pointe neighbors. The barricade landed with a thud at what historically has been one of the nation’s starkest boundaries between white and black America.

Grosse Pointe Park replaced the barricade with a traffic roundabout that admits Detroiters into the suburb, but that forces drivers from the suburb to use an alley for access to the big city. The compromise keeps traffic flowing at a creep, fostering a more pedestrian-friendly downtown business strip, said former Grosse Pointe Park Mayor Greg Theokas.